Information about the current activities and events at TAMU – ALEC Department.

Category Archives: Agricultural Education

By: Samantha Voges The alarm clock rang at 6:30 on a Saturday morning. Most high school students would not even begin to imagine being up at this hour on a weekend. Kylie Bennett, student at Texas A&M reminisces one of her experiences from her time in FFA when she was in high school. Bennett recalls being up at this hour every morning to get to the barn in time to feed and work her show pigs before her day was off to a start. Once she was at… Read More →

by Chelsea McQueen Getting an advanced degree is a frequent desire for working professionals. However, finding the time and the method to get the degree while supporting a family can make it difficult. That is where the Doc@Distance program can help. Doc@Distance is a joint program between Texas A&M and Texas Tech universities that was created to give mid-career professionals the opportunity to obtain their doctorate degree in agricultural education from a distance. “I am really excited to get the opportunity to be able to get my doctorate… Read More →

Each year the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development chooses 12 students from across the United States to participate in their Future Leaders Forum. This program allows students to be put in contact with industry leaders in international development in agriculture. It also gives them the opportunity to see the inner workings of global organizations based in Washington, District of Columbia. Taya Brown, a graduate student in the ALEC department, had the honor of being chosen as one of the 2015 FLF participants. “There was a lot… Read More →

By: Emily Foreman For the past six years John Rayfield, Ph.D., has been teaching a graduate-level course on experiential learning. This class combines the theory of experiential learning with real-world experiences and allows students to engage in hands-on learning. The course is a balance of in depth theory and the actual real-world practice of that theory. Rayfield said the students learn experiential learning theories dating back to the 1920s and 30s. “The students study how project-based learning in rural living was a large portion of educational society and… Read More →

Agricultural Science majors are developing and improving their teaching skills through hands-on experience in the STEM Lab. These students learn science, technology, engineering and math—or STEM—through skills-based learning activities. Woodworking, electrical wiring and welding are some of the skills students practice. The STEM Lab aims to expose agricultural science majors to these skills and to teach them how to guide others through the process. “We mostly give [students] an opportunity to practice these skills, and then we teach them how to teach others,” said Jason McKibben, a graduate… Read More →

Several ALEC faculty members attended the American Association for Agricultural Education’s 2015 national conference in San Antonio, Texas. Throughout the conference several faculty members received awards and recognition for their outstanding work in various areas: Kim Dooley, Ph.D. – AAAE Fellow Alvin Larke, Ph.D. – AAAE Honorary Lifetime Membership Award Clay Ewell – AAAE Special Award Robert Strong­­, Ph.D. – AAAE Outstanding Early Career Award Katy Lane and Theresa Murphrey, Ph.D. – Top Five Research Poster Encouraging Undergraduate Students in Agriculture to Pursue International Experiences: Preference and Motivation… Read More →

May 20, 2015 Today’s agricultural leaders, educators and communicators have a moving target to hit in their industries. Information that once would have taken weeks and months to generate can now be found in a few minutes. Today’s communication and education professionals have instant access to nearly unlimited amounts of information which they can disseminate to the world in just seconds. It’s an exciting time, but keeping up with the latest tools and techniques can feel like aiming an arrow at a moving target while running on a… Read More →

Agricultural Science faculty, advisors and graduate assistants are organizing eight workshops to be held this June on the Texas A&M campus. The goal of these workshops is to develop the skills and strategies of agricultural teachers to improve agricultural education for high school students statewide. Hands-on experience and professional development are some of the key benefits teachers will gain through participation in the program. Lesson plans and materials to use in the classroom will be available as well as opportunities to further develop a resume. Teachers are… Read More →

By: Patricia Ward Every semester the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences sends a group of students to participate in the Agricultural and Natural Resources Policy semester-long internship in Washington, D.C., Austin, Texas and Rome, Italy. This semester the ALEC Department has five students participating in the internship. The ANRP internship is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Created in 1990, students in this internship gain hands-on experience in agricultural policy and government. Current Washington, D.C. intern Kara Slaughter is a junior agricultural communications and journalism major interning… Read More →

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